Sugar is a hot topic and many people are divided over it. As a population, we generally consume too much - but attempting to eliminate it entirely can create a whole new set of problems. Sugars occur naturally in many nutritious foods including milk, fruit, vegetables and grains and are also used in cooking and food production due to its ability to create volume, caramelise, preserve and ferment.
Tips When Shopping
As a general rule, it is recommended to aim for less than 10g per 100g. For products which are high in natural sugars such as breakfast cereals containing dried fruit, aim for less than 25g sugars per 100g. The sugar value on labels doesn’t separate natural sugars from added sugars, so to understand where your sugar is coming from read through the ingredients list. If the main source of sugars is from nutritious sources such as milk or fruit then the food will have more nutritional value than one that is based on added sugars.
Our Approach to Sugar
At We Feed You, we add almost no sugar to our meals and instead use the natural sweetness of ingredients eg. carrot, sweetcorn or red grapes. We do use sugar for pickling vegetables such as the cabbage in our Spicy Korean Tofu meal but strain this off before using. We also use a very small amount of sugar in our Spiced Lentil Dahl to balance the spice mix but the total amount in the dish is very small. We don’t use any corn syrups, honey, rice bran syrups or other forms of sugar disguised under the label of 'unrefined sugar' (we are not fans of this marketing trick!).
Which Sugars are Best?
To learn more about the different sugars that are often hidden in our food supply, read the following article by leading Dietitian Catherine Saxelby. This will help you decide for yourself which sugars to stock in your pantry: honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, golden syrup, treacle, molasses, barley malt syrup or brown rice malt syrup?
